To beOr is that To bite?
by Strych9
Summary: D does in fact have a sense of humor, and a vampire in a sticky situation brings it right out. The only problem? D's idea of a joke makes most people twitch. Warning for cheesy humor and dumb insults. read at your own risk. Oh yeah, mild cursing too.


**To be( oris thatbite?)**

By strych9serenity

Disclaimer: I don't own it so don't sue me. If you do, I'll answer the above question REALLY fast.

D's POV:

It had been a long time since he'd come this far out from the Capital in this particular quadrant, and he was having trouble deciding what puzzled him more; the vampires decision to live there, or the rumors of inhuman opposition to the vampire's rule. Normally it was the humans alone who objected while the rest of the sentients, creatures recreated from fairy tales and nightmares in the age of vampiric ascendancy, rejoiced in the heightened carnage their masters alone could provide.

He was still pondering this when he rode into the village the summons had come from, only to be told that another hunter had come in before him, and if he wanted to get the bounty on Count Arastail he would have to beat the other hunter too him. He was also told he would have little or no chance because the other hunter had a massive head start. True, in most cases three days would be hard to make up, but this was D, and in the century or so since he'd last been out this way people seemed to have forgotten his legendary skill with a mount. He was gone before they had finished speaking. Who on earth, he wondered as rode, could have reached the town in the 70 odd hours it had taken him to get there; especially as he knew all the hunters had abandoned the North Eastern Quadrant years ago when D himself killed the regions last known vampire? Such a person would have had to fly, and no craft possessed by mortals had the ability to pass the Dead Tech field surrounding this area. Even he had had to stop and carry his horse the few miles to the other side. What in hell was going on? He was about to find out.

He had just entered the foothills north of town when an unusual sight met his eyes and caused even him to stop and stare. Three days worth of dead monsters stood piled in a ring around a young woman whose plain face and unassuming form belied the story told by a close look at her weapon of choice… a steel and wire mesh contraption that vaguely resembled an old fashioned tennis racket and had plainly been used like a cheese grater on more then one monster's disbelieving face. Even more odd was the conversation taking place between the girl in the circle of bodies and the vampire standing just out of harms reach.

"You can't keep that speed up forever you know. Sooner or later my minions will drag you down. Wouldn't it be better to come to me of your own free will?"

"Bugger off bat boy."

"Such language… You may be lacking in beauty, but I like my women spirited. Perhaps I'll keep you around for a while instead of just eating you, what do you think?"

"I'd rather choke to death on my own puke. Keep your hands to yourself you fanged pansy."

Things went back and forth like this while D's confusion grew. Why was one of the nobility being held off by a mere slip of a girl with nothing more than an unusual but not very formidable weapon and some rather garden variety insults? More to the point, if the local monsters HAD been in rebellion, why were they fighting this girl at the Count's command, and HOW had she managed to hold them all of for three days and nights in the same spot? For a Dhampir or a barbaroi such a thing would be difficult; for a human, which all his senses told him she was, it was impossible. He hesitated on the edge of just finishing the Count while he was still focused on the girl, but some thing told him he might just want to sit back and watch this time. He was surprised to find that this little stand off was actually amusing him. Evidently, no one had ever insulted the count in his entire life, and getting human gutter speak thrown at him was starting to get on his nerves.

"What did you just call me you base born human slut!"

"Slut? Only in your dreams you sheep fucking necrophiliac. Oh and since your hearing sucks worse than my grandmothers, I repeat, you are an imp-licking gigolo with the brain of a retarded pudding monster whose breath could kill a robotic elephant. Do I really need to repeat myself you aging relic or are you going to back off and let me clean my racket before I shove it down your miserable throat?"

D's eyebrow twitched upwards and the corner of mouth did the same. It was just a hair's breadth, and barely noticeable, but enough to shock his ever present companion to the core. "D? Are you actually smiling? I think I must be hallucinating… the great stone face, smiling at this, this Farce!" D's only reply was a clenching of his fist around the reigns. In the mean time this last insult had proven too much for the young (D guessed his age at well under a thousand years.) vampire to take. " You are mine, wench!" He'd moved with all the speed at his disposal, and had actually managed to get hold of both the racket handle and her opposite wrist, but found himself unable push in for the killing strike at her throat. Push though he might, with all the strength in his undead frame, her arms remained straight out in front of her, unbudging no matter what direction he tried to force them in. More to the point, her bones hadn't broken under the strain, and her feet hadn't moved so much as a centimeter. She was also smiling with an odd, cynical twist to her lips that D found disturbingly familiar. Now where in his long life had he seen that smile before?

"I will rend your flesh and drain you to a lifeless hussk!" the vampire hissed, sibilants very pronounced as the air rushed out between his bared fangs. "Oh, if you insist, you can try. But I feel compelled to warn you," She paused and the smirk became a blinding grin. "If you do bite me, I get to bite back. Somehow I don't think you'd like that very much, all things considered." How could he have forgotten! D's eyes widened noticeably this time as he remembered a day so long ago in his father's court, when an unassuming slave was dragged before his father and told him the exact same thing; just before she changed…

"Aieeee!" The count shrieked as his teeth clamped together on obsidian scales instead of soft skin, and broke. Blood snaked down his chin a he cringed in the suddenly one handed, one clawed? Grip of his now much larger opponent. "No" He gasped as his head fell back to meet amused reptilian eyes. "Not possible! You were extinct! All of you! Extinct!" The expression of fear, disbelief, an utter indignation was absolutely priceless, and even D let loose a quiet chuckle; in the process shocking his parasitic companion into total silence and catching Sascha's attention. One massive yellow eye actually winked at him before she returned her attention to her prey. " Oh, you naughty little boy you. Didn't your Daddy ever tell you why they couldn't recreate us? We never did die out. We adapted. You people, on the other hand, were to stupid to follow suit and to ignorant to realize when you were going to blow OUR cover. Really, when Mother told me vampires were all idiots, she was understating the case! You, for example, didn't you think it odd that I stopped you so easily, but didn't actively attack you? Fool, my people are bound by a law of defense only, so that humans and even your own dimwitted kind don't band together to exterminate us again. I did warn you, any last words?" The vampiric complexion being what it was, D hadn't thought it possible for a Noble to get any paler, but this one was so pale he was verging on see through. "No…" He whispered as the fanged jaws opened wide. Snap!

D dismounted and strolled casually up the winged nightmare crouched beside the road. "Vampires are idiots?" He questioned in his soft, unemotional voice. " Undisputed fact." Her voice was as deadpan as his own. "Sascha, what about Dhampir's?" The basso rumble of her chuckle shook the ground, and D's left hand uttered a muffled squeak. "Oh, their intelligent enough, if you discount their cheesy sense of humor. Utterly insane, if you ask me, but intelligent enough." D's expression didn't change at all this time, but sparkle of mischief flashed briefly in his eyes as his lurking sense of humor betrayed itself. He looked down at the now headless corpse in front of Sascha. "He did at least answer that old riddle; you know, Shakespeare's." One scaly eyebrow went up in wary enquiry. "Which one?" That elusive glint of humor flashed again as he quoted "To bite or note to bite? That is the question!" The dragon's roar of amused outrage carried right across the plain as D's hand muttered to its self, "He DOES have an awful sense of humor…and dragon's are even worse."

The End

A/N: This was an old story of mine written at some unholy hour that I came across today when I cleaned out my files. If you like it fine, if not, please try to be creative with your flames. Please?


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